The information discerned by the five sense consciousnesses is directly transmitted to the manas

Is the information discerned by the five sense consciousnesses transmitted directly to the manas, or to the mind consciousness? It is transmitted directly to the manas, not to the mind consciousness. Because the manas is the master consciousness of the five aggregates and the six consciousnesses, directly governing the arising, ceasing, and transformation of the six consciousnesses, whereas the mind consciousness is not the master consciousness and cannot determine the arising, ceasing, and transformation of the five aggregates and the five sense consciousnesses. Moreover, the mind consciousness and the five sense consciousnesses are parallel and coequal consciousnesses; the five material sense-objects and the mental sense-objects they discern are parallel and coequal dharmas, which together constitute the realm of the six sense-objects—without any one of the five material sense-objects and the mental sense-object, the six sense-objects cannot be formed. Therefore, the five material sense-objects discerned by the five sense consciousnesses are transmitted directly to the manas, and at the same time the mental sense-objects discerned by the mind consciousness are also transmitted to the manas together with the five sense consciousnesses. Only then can the manas know how the material form is, how the sound is, and how the taste is; otherwise, it would be unable to know any kind of sense-object realm at all.

Having received the information transmitted by the five sense consciousnesses and the mind consciousness, the manas engages in its own deliberation, consideration, weighing, and selection, and then makes a decision on how to handle the next step. The six consciousnesses will then arise again upon the sense-object realm that the manas wishes to deal with, and there is also a distinction of primary and secondary, as well as a distinction of heavier and lighter in what is discerned.